Last week, the reigning Saudi monarch replaced one crown prince with another, dividing the fragmented world of Islam even further, increasing the tensions between Sunni Islam and Shiites. The shifting reality in the Middle East has political analysts in a quandary, but this very development was predicted explicitly in an ancient Jewish source, and one rabbi, an expert in end-of-days prophecy, explained that this global shift in politics is returning the world to a more Biblical framework.
A drama unfolded in Saudi Arabia last Wednesday as Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud named his son, Mohammed bin Salman, 31, to be his successor to the throne. The move is contentious, creating conflict in the upper echelons of Saudi royalty. In order to make the appointment, King Salman had to remove the current crown prince, Mohammed Ben Naif, from the position. Ben Naif, the king’s cousin,was barred from leaving the kingdom and confined to his palace in the coastal city of Jidda in order to prevent any conspiring or infighting.
Prince Mohammed is currently the kingdom’s Defense Minister and is a regional leader in the Sunni opposition to Iran. Prince Mohammed has united most of the Sunni countries in an alliance to oppose the burgeoning strength of the Shiite nations – led by Iran. The two groups, Sunni and Shiite, are fighting via proxy forces in a number of Arab countries, including Syria and Yemen.